Limiting negative pressure of water under dynamic stressing

Abstract

The authors describe experiments concerned with the limiting negative pressure (that is, tension) which water can sustain when stressed dynamically by propagating a pulse of tension through a vertical column of the liquid. The effect of boiling and deionization increased the ability of the water to withstand tension. A single sample of water was subjected to repeated tensile failure at regular time intervals and it was found that the breaking tension that could be sustained tended progressively to an upper limit of about 11.0 atm as this type of stressing proceeded. The breaking tension is a maximum at around the temperature corresponding to the maximum density of water.

Polymeric Hopkinson Bar-Confinement Chamber Apparatus to Evaluate Fluid Cavitation

“…Negative incident strains exceeding the 50% cavitation correspond to a high probability of cavitation Kenner (2.96,3.09 MPa) [60] for distilled water. The variability of other reported dynamic techniques ranged between 5 and 10% [53,[55][56][57]. Considering the existing dynamic methods presented in the literature, only the Tube-Arrest method by Williams et al [53] visually identified cavitating events.…”

“…Couzen et al [57] reported tensile strengths of negative 0.912, 0.861, and 1.52 MPa for boiled water, tap-water, and boiled deionized water, respectively. Similarly, Sedgewick [55] reported tensile strengths of negative 0.912, 1.01, 1.17, and 1.47 MPa for tap-water, deionized water, boiled tap-water, and boiled deionized water, respectively. Williams [56] reported tensile strengths of negative 9 MPa along with 4.5 MPa and 13 MPa as lower and upper bounds, respectively, for 'nuclear-grade' deionized water at 20°C.…”

“…This tensile reflection is limited by the amount of tension the fluid can withstand, showing a 'plateauing' of its magnitude with increasing compressive pulse magnitudes, and is reported as the apparent tensile strength of the fluid. This method is described in greater detail in the works of Couzen et al [54], Sedgewick et al [55], and Williams et al [56]. Couzen et al [57] reported tensile strengths of negative 0.912, 0.861, and 1.52 MPa for boiled water, tap-water, and boiled deionized water, respectively.…”

Cavitation in water: a review

“…At the time Ref. [2] was written, the bullet-piston method with a stainless steel tube gave the most negative P cav (measured with a piezoelectric transducer), −1.47 MPa [83]; in addition, a minimum of P cav (T ) was found at 5 • C, similarly to Briggs [81], but at less negative pressures. Since then, it was further investigated and lead to −9 MPa [84].…”

Solid-Liquid-Solid Interfaces

“…One caveat, however, is that there is a practical limit as to the magnitude of negative pressure that can be sustained during the separation of surfaces. Whereas thermodynamic equilibrium suggests that the liquid will cavitate once its absolute pressure approaches zero (e.g., [11]), it has also been found that, in certain cases, the liquid film may achieve absolute pressures that are negative [7,[12][13][14][15]. For example, an analytical model was developed [15] for the dynamic vertical separation of opposing plates and, based on fitting with experimental data, a tensile strength of 35 kPa was found for a mineral oil.…”